Kimi Raikkonen says his Lotus simply lacks the pace of most the cars ahead of him on the grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix after qualifying back in eighth.

Raikkonen was ninth fastest in Q3 but will start eighth once a grid penalty has been applied to Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes for a gearbox change. After qualifying second just one week ago in China, Raikkonen was slower than the two Force Indias and Felipe Massa's Ferrari on hard tyres, but said his Lotus is simply lacking grip over a single lap in Bahrain.

"We just don't have the speed, there is no reason to complain," he said. "We need more grip and that will help us, but we already know we are missing a bit of downforce compared to the top guys. Some places the tyre works better for you than at others. Last year we were not very fast here in qualifying and in the race we were a bit better, so hopefully tomorrow we can get a bit more from it.

"Our maximum was maybe a few places better, but as I said yesterday, it didn't feel exactly like we wanted and it didn't really improve today. It's just one of the places where we just don't seem to have the speed and hopefully tomorrow in the race it can turn the other way, but we'll see."

Asked if he thought a podium was possible, Raikkonen added: "We will do our best but I cannot tell you where we will finish, that's stupid. We can only do our best and hopefully it will be turn out to be a strong race.

"I hope that our tyres will last in better shape than the others, but like I said, it's the first time we will have run these tyres over a race distance here so we'll see."